I was prepared to be spooked, I was prepared to be disgusted, but I was not prepared to be bored. The new horror flick 'Saw' makes the one crucial mistake of horror movies, it is so badly acted that it makes the audience laugh. At a preview screening last night, what should have been the dramatic high point of the film, seemed so preposterous that the audience got a bad case of the giggles.

This serial-killer movie is a substandard example of the genre. It is badly plotted and filmed with classic serial-killer grimy darkness. It takes far too many of its cues from standards such as 'Seven' and 'Silence of the Lambs' but instead creates a movie that is nonsensical and dull. There are no characters that don't seem to deserve a good killing and the killer himself is not an interesting character.

The suspense is minimal. And the movie's gore is more ugly than truly chilling. The premise has promise: two men are chained in a room and one is told that he has to kill the other or else his wife and child will die. But with a scant few hours on the clock, the two men seem bent on whining and complaining. Whatever tension there could be melts away due to the ridiculously hackneyed acting. The movie flashes back to show the past exploits of a devious killer known as Jigsaw who creates games to get people to kill themselves. Flashbacks show Danny Glover as a cop obsessed with the killer.

Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell (the screenwriter of the movie) are the two men trapped in the room. As they learn about the ways that they are connected, the plot gets more implausible. Like many recent movies, this one tries for a surprise ending. But it is too little, too late, the audience has already lost interest. The chopping editing, hyper-dramatic use of music and terrible make-up only add to the knowledge that this is a low-budget enterprise.

The movie seems to delight in torture but the methods, though inventive, aren't compelling enough to make anyone want to sit through this film.